


That One Time in Istanbul

by thedevilchicken



Category: Indiana Jones Series, The Mummy Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Explicit Sexual Content, First Meetings, First Time, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 01:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9694661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: "Is it a sex thing?" Rick asked, when Indy pulled out his whip.Or: five times Indy and Rick (sort of) kissed.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [polkadot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/gifts).



When they first met in the field, it was irritation at first sight. Six days later, crossing paths and trading insults through a South American jungle, things really hadn't improved. 

Rick's always been a kind of jump in with both feet kind of guy, act first and ask questions later, and that was pretty much the cause of the problem they had right then and there. Once they'd gotten in past the darts and the floor that fell out from underneath their feet, past the rusty blades and the hidden pits full of wooden stakes, Rick had gone right ahead and grabbed the damn idol off of the pedestal. The whole place was falling down around their ears, and Indy was so pissed off all he wanted to do was stop right there and slap the smile right off Rick's face, falling rocks be damned. 

Fortunately, even where Rick O'Connell was concerned, Indy had more sense than that. The next time they stopped, it wasn't so Indy could slap Rick's stupid face; they stopped, teetering on the edge of yet another pit full of spikes full of yet more hundred-year-old corpses and a few a bit fresher than that. Too wide to jump. Walls to smooth to climb. It figured. 

"Well, crap," Rick said. "Did we take a wrong turn back there?"

"You were leading," Indy replied. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I was?"

"You were." 

"Well, crap."

Indy shook his head and pulled his whip from his satchel. Rick eyed it, brows raised. 

"Is this a sex thing?" Rick asked, looking kind of amused despite the situation. "'Cause if this is a sex thing, it's totally the wrong place and the wrong time and I'm absolutely the wrong guy." Indy shot him a glare for a second; the whole place was coming apart all around them and somehow Rick was still cracking wise a mile a minute. "Okay, except for one time in Istanbul. But that's a whole other story."

Indy cracked the whip and it took around a sturdy-looking vine up in the ceiling. He wound the end around his hand - this was _not_ going to be comfortable - and held out his free arm to Rick. 

"Come here." 

"You're sure about this?"

"As sure as I'm gonna get."

"You've done this before?"

"Maybe a couple of times."

"And you lived?" Indy raised his brows. "Yeah, of course you lived. I mean, if you can call this living." 

Rick wrapped one arm around Indy's waist and got his fingers around his tightly-buckled belt. Indy wrapped one arm around Rick's shoulders and got his fingers around his tightly-buckled shoulder holster. 

"On three," Indy said. 

"On or after?"

"Why would I say on if I meant after?"

"Yeah, okay, on three."

On three, they ran, they jumped, they swung, they lived - and Indy _did_ call it living, he really did. And when they got to the other side, the whip still pulled tight around Indy's hand with their collective weight, Rick didn't let go right away so Indy didn't let go right away. They stood there together on the edge of the pit while rocks fell and thankfully no one died, Rick's arm around Indy's waist and Indy's arm around Rick's shoulders, pressed together right down to their thighs and too damn close for comfort. For Indy's, at least. 

"You're my hero, Indiana Jones," Rick said, mock-seriously, his free hand to his heart. 

"Yeah, I wish I could say the feeling's mutual, O'Connell," Indy replied, and he told himself the reason his pulse was racing was the fact that they were still mid-escape. Maybe part of that was even true. 

At the mouth of the cave, Rick tripped him and made off with the idol; when Indy made it to the place they'd moored their boats, Rick was already speeding away downriver with both of them. 

Rick blew him a kiss. Indy scowled. Score one for the British Museum. 

\---

The second time they met in the field, Rick was just as annoying as ever. 

It was two years later and there they were, running around the Louvre in freshly-pressed tuxedos after midnight, chased by Nazis dressed as wait staff. There was a centuries-old page of lost manuscript that'd been hidden in the backing of a minor Spanish icon stored down in the museum basement, or so Marcus's friend's friend's source had told them on the QT. It had turned out it wasn't much of a secret, though, considering how apparently half the Third Reich and Rick O'Connell all knew, too. But hell, at least Indy had the page there inside his breast pocket; he wasn't leaving this one empty-handed. 

"You do a lot of this, Dr. Jones?" Rick asked, as they skidded into a crouch behind the Venus de Milo. 

"You'd be surprised," Indy replied. But frankly, Rick being Rick, his ex-wife being who she was, he probably wouldn't've been surprised at all. After all, they'd already almost been caught breaking into the Houses of Parliament and a little Catholic church outside Santiago de Compostela and that was just what they'd done in the past few days. Rick wasn't totally a stranger to the life. 

Footsteps approached. Indy pulled his whip from his satchel, just in case. 

"Is this a sex thing?" Rick whispered, a fraction to close for comfort to Indy's right ear. "'Cause if it's a sex thing..."

"I know - wrong place, wrong time, don't ask about Istanbul," Indy muttered. 

Rick flashed him a grin in the moonlit hallway, half in shadow, as he went for his guns. "Maybe ask me next time," he said, and he popped up tall, guns blazing. Indy brought a guy down with a whip to the ankle and then they ran for the exits. Again. So much for the cocktail party. 

Outside, they slipped down a side road off of a side road off of the Rue de Rivoli, one after the other though who the hell knew why. And when the waiter-suited Nazis inevitably came looking, somehow the sound of their shoes on the pavement might as well've been jackboots 'cause Indy would've known it was them anywhere, Rick pushed him up against the nearest wall behind a stack of empty crates and a garbage can. Rick tangled his fingers in his hair and kissed him on the mouth. 

It was strangely effective: the Nazis were looking for thieves, not homosexuals, so when the flashlights came their way all it took was a surprised _va-t'en!_ as they hid their faces with their hands for them to move the jackboots on. 

"Smart move," Indy said, half-grudgingly, his face all flushed. He still had two full handfuls of the back of Rick's tuxedo jacket. "So, what made you think of that?"

Rick shrugged, straightening out Indy's little black bowtie. "I was out of bullets," he said, like that was any kind of answer. "Look, let's get out of here. I know they're dumb, but they're not _that_ dumb."

They went their separate ways out of the alley, which Indy guessed made sense. And when he spread out the page on his hotel room dining table, it wasn't a centuries-old page of manuscript. It was a note scrawled on cheap hotel stationery. He groaned. 

_Better luck next time, Indiana!_ it said. 

All he could do was laugh as he poured himself a drink. The son of a bitch had done it again. 

\---

The third time they met in the field, Indy was ready for him. 

It was a half-sunk temple on a little-known Greek island that time, more than a year after the last time but not quite up to two. There was something there the British Museum would've liked to have and Rick was still working for them then, freelance, 'cause it turned out somehow Evelyn Carnahan could still stand him even after the divorce. Indy's dad had known hers. Evy was a real piece of work back then, still is now, must've been (so Indy thought) if she'd managed to live with Rick O'Connell for those three years they'd been married and not throttle him to death. He wasn't sure he could've done the same, not that he'd have had any reason to live with him. It wasn't like they were getting married anytime soon.

So, it was Marshall College vs the British Museum, just like it had been before. It was a race to the finish, reading Greek inscriptions carved into walls, reading the phases of the moon like riddles carved throughout the temple of Artemis, running down corridors carved down into the bedrock. Rick couldn't read Greek. Indy was glad, for once, that his dad had made him learn it - he'd needed a hell of a lot more of it over the years than just the numbers one to twenty, and this was one of those times. 

He waded down the corridor, sloping down where it had once been straight, the water getting deeper. He was carrying a flashlight with all its joins glued up tight like somehow that would keep it waterproof, and eventually he came to what he knew must be the right chamber when Rick splashed up behind him with a big fiery torch in his hand. Not great in water, sure, but otherwise effective. 

"We meet again, Dr. Jones," Rick said, amused, leaning there against the wall by the door. His elbow nudged a brick; an apparatus moved. And, surely, oh-so-surely, the whole place shuddered and began to sink again in a hail of stones as the door to the chamber beyond began to rise. He would've liked a little more time to prepare, but Rick always had known how to make an entrance.

"Well, crap," Rick said. 

"Yeah, crap," Indy replied, and gave him a grimace and a quick round of applause. Then he took three big, deep breaths one after the other and dove under the opening door. There really wasn't any time to waste.

The statuette was inside; he could see it in the flashlight beam even as Rick's torch sputtered out behind him. It was everything his research said it was: a foot high and solid silver though kinda tarnished from the seawater, with gemstones set into its eyes - an important find for any museum. He grabbed it as his flashlight blinked then gave up the ghost then he turned and he made for the door and damnit, Rick was right there at the other side, struggling, pinned underneath the water. A rock had fallen out of the ceiling and lay across one leg. 

He should've left him there, he thought, long-suffering. It would've been easy to justify 'cause he just wasn't sure how long they had till the whole place came down and went down and sank straight into the sea, but hell, he couldn't leave him to drown without at least giving rescue a shot and he knew it. He dropped the statuette, goddamnit, and he shoved at the stone but it wouldn't budge so he surfaced, the water up to his shoulders already. He gulped a breath and went back down. With his fingers at the back of Rick's neck to keep him still, he sealed his mouth over his and breathed air into him. He did it again while the wheels turned in his head, while the door came up higher and the temple sank down lower. They didn't have long.

The third time he did it, his mouth pressed not totally impersonally up to Rick's, Rick grabbed his whip and pointed at the door and in a flash, Indy got it; Rick, for once, had a sensible plan. He looped the whip tight around the stone then jammed the end into the door mechanism. One more breath was all he got as the water reached the roof and he breathed it into Rick as they waited underneath, watching, hair spread out around their heads like halos. And God, for a second he thought it wouldn't work but then it took, it bit, and Indy yanked hard at Rick's belt and Rick kicked hard against the rock. Before the whip snapped in two from the strain, Indy had him freed. Before they could drown, they reached the surface. Before the sinking temple could kill them, they pulled themselves out onto the shore alive. 

"You saved my life," Rick said, as he flopped onto the ground, one leg still in the water. He rubbed his rock-bruised ankle, dripping under the bright Greek island sunlight. "I think you might've kissed me, but you saved my life."

"Yeah," Indy replied, slumping down next to him. He'd definitely saved Rick's life. Maybe he'd kinda kissed him. "And I'm regretting it already." He winced as he rubbed at his eyes. A waterlogged hat, sea slime on his favorite jacket, and no damn statuette to show for it. "And you owe me a whip, O'Connell." 

"Is this a sex thing?" Rick said, somehow - _somehow_ \- looking amused though the ankle of his knee-high leather boot was so scuffed and marked it couldn't mean anything good for his ankle inside it. "'Cause if it's a sex thing..." 

Indy groaned. He flicked water in Rick's general direction and didn't even mention Istanbul like that was the mature solution, but then again he never felt real mature where Rick was concerned. He usually felt more like breaking his fist on his face, or maybe what he felt like was something else. Maybe he felt like kissing him, or maybe what he felt like was something else.

Maybe he'd saved Rick's life, but there was nothing to say he wasn't going to kill him before they kissed again.

And, okay, maybe he hadn't been as ready for him as he'd thought.

\---

The fourth time they met in the field, Rick was the last person Indy wanted to see. 

It was fourteen months later, not that anyone was counting, and there they were hiking in the damned Himalayas like either of them had much of a clue what they were doing when it came to mountains - they were more like cities and deserts and museums kind of guys. And all Indy could think was thank God it was so cold - between the hood over his head and the scarf over Rick's mouth, he could barely hear him talking at all. 

Then Rick slipped on the ice and plunged face-first into the river and sure, it would've been real easy to let him just get swept away, problem solved, and maybe for a second he even contemplated it, except he knew he really didn't. But then he sighed and shucked his pack and his hood and he ran full-tilt down the ice-edged river, on the rocks, slipping, falling, screwing up his knee in a white-hot pop of _something_ as his whip caught Rick's wrist and he caught Rick's other hand in his. Hung on for dear life, for Rick's life at least if not for his own. 

When he pulled him out, he was ice cold and he wasn't breathing, so Indy pulled down their soaked scarves and breathed for him. He sealed his mouth over Rick's and breathed Indy-warmed air into him till Rick spluttered and lurched and spat up water all over the snow. When Rick looked at him, shivering and white as a sheet, he didn't say a word. Indy guessed he didn't know what to say either. 

It wasn't far to the old monastery, which was just as well 'cause Rick was freezing and Indy's knee couldn't even bear his own weight, never mind his pack, but he guessed at least it was so cold that he could barely feel it. When they got inside, Rick closed up the doors as best he could with shaking hands and Indy lit a fire in the pit in the centre of the little room. Then he emptied his pack on the floor and gritted his teeth as he rolled out his sleeping bag. Then he stripped off Rick's clothes right down to his skin, stripped himself with fumbling hands and wrapped the bag around them both. 

Rick was like a shivering block of ice against him, his teeth still chattering, his fingers so damn cold he could barely move them. Indy shoved Rick's hands under his arms and rubbed Rick's back with his own hands, skin on freezing skin, and Rick shook, clenching his jaw, pressed against him. Any other place or time, being naked with him might've felt intimate, though intimacy where Rick O'Connell was concerned didn't seem to be much of a concern at all. The concern right then wasn't intimacy. It wasn't Indy's mouth on Rick's like kissing with added drama. The concern was whether or not he could warm him out of hypothermia. The concern was whether they'd both last the night. 

"Tell me about Istanbul," Indy said. 

Rick laughed hoarsely. Rick's eyes opened and he looked right at him, though it took him a second to focus. He really hadn't changed since that afternoon years earlier, he was just a whole lot colder and wetter. 

"Why don't you tell me, doc?" he said. 

So, he did. 

\---

He'd been there for a conference, or at least that was what he'd told the guys at the desk when he got off of the plane and they checked his passport. He was there to give a lecture. He wasn't there for the sapphire at all. 

He was sitting there in the hotel bar, at the bar, in his glasses and a frumpy brown suit though he'd long since tossed his jacket over another stool and rolled his shirtsleeves up around his elbows. He'd been to Istanbul a couple of times before that, but it was hotter than he'd known it, so hot sweat was prickling at his back and starting to sting at the corners of his eyes. It was humid. Way too humid. He definitely preferred Connecticut summers, or the dry desert heat out in Egypt.

"You American?"

Indy looked up, and then up again 'cause it turned out the guy who'd just spoken was pretty tall, straight into a pair of blue eyes and an easy smile. He nodded up at him. 

"Yeah, I'm American." 

"Accent's kinda mixed up, though. Sounds like you've spent some time in Chicago and someplace out east, maybe Maryland, Connecticut?"

"You've got a good ear." 

"Then I guess it's not too far behind the rest of me." Indy gave a surprised, amused snort. The guy grinned hugely. "Mind if I join you?"

"Sure, be my guest," Indy replied, gesturing at the empty stool there next to him. "Next you'll be wanting me to buy you a drink."

"Mine's a scotch on the rocks," the guy said, with an exaggerated wink as he slung one lengthy leg over the stool to sit himself down and Indy found himself smiling, so he flagged down the barman and bought the guy his drink because he figured, well, why not. One o'clock on a Thursday afternoon wasn't a real busy hour for the hotel bar and hell, he guessed he might even have been glad of the company. Archaeologists were great - hell, he was one - but he'd had a long flight in from the States and a long morning session right after and all he wanted to do was relax. He figured maybe shooting the breeze with a cheerful, cocky stranger (he kinda reminded Indy of himself) was just what the doctor ordered.

They talked for a while at the bar, until a while was an hour and then two as they drank on Indy's tab and at some point, not even too far from the start of it all, Indy caught exactly what it was that was going on. The guy was either the friendliest person in Turkey, a really chatty prostitute or a thief after the sapphire that Indy had hidden about his person, and it was probably the latter. He didn't really give a damn about that, though, not right then - whether it was real or fake or someplace in between, the guy was funny and charming and kinda easy on the eye and the most damn fun Indy had had in months, since his last big score for the museum. 

And as they drank more, then more, then more again, he knew he'd gotten it right: the guy was after something. But for somebody who'd gotten drunk more than once with Marion Ravenwood, drinking with this guy was nothing at all.

"You have a room here?" the guy said, leaning closer, somewhere between hours two and three. 

"Third floor," Indy replied, and patted down his hip pockets for the key that he dangled triumphantly from his fingertip. 

"What do you say we buy a bottle and we go upstairs?"

"I think you mean what do you say _I_ buy a bottle and we go upstairs," Indy replied, brows raised significantly. 

The guy grinned, all unselfconscious pearly whites, and heaved himself up from his stool in response. So, Indy flagged down the barman and put a bottle of half-decent scotch on his tab, not the really good stuff but they'd had enough by then that neither of them would be able to tell. They went upstairs, hot and half-drunk with a bottle in Indy's hand, stumbling on the stairs, and they both laughed as Indy fumbled with the key in the lock though his pulse was picking up, adrenaline came coursing in. And once they were inside, once the door was closed behind them, Indy was almost ready for a fight; the sapphire was in a leather pouch buttoned up in his jacket's inside pocket and he wasn't going to let it go without a fight, that much was sure. But the fight he expected didn't come. 

"You didn't tell me your name," the guy said, and Indy tapped one finger at the name badge still pinned to his shirt that said _Dr. Henry Jones, Jr._

"But everyone calls me Indiana," he said. "How about you?"

"I'm Rick," the guy said, sounding sincere enough, though at the time Indy figured it was an alias. 

"Just Rick?"

Rick shrugged. "Sure, just Rick," he confirmed, and he turned the key in the lock with a glance back over his shoulder, shutting them both in Indy's room together. Indy watched him do it. "I mean, I guess my passport might call me Richard." He turned back around and dropped the key on the bureau by the door. "But _please_ don't call me Richard."

"Why are you here, Rick?"

Rick shrugged his shoulders, hands on hips. "Well, for starters, I think you need some help with that bottle of scotch." 

Indy put the bottle down on the table. "I mean it. What are you doing here?"

There was a moment then where the look on Rick's face said maybe he'd come clean, absolutely clean, say he'd come for the sapphire or maybe say he was some kind of a regretful thief who felt bad about the things he did for his next payday. Instead, he stepped up closer, closing the gap between them across the floor in three long, kinda languid strides. Instead, he ran his hands slowly, maybe even cautiously, over Indy's biceps, over his shoulders, the back of his neck. He ran the pad of one thumb over the scar in Indy's chin. He ran the pad of one thumb over the curve of Indy's lower lip. For once, he wasn't smiling.

"Am I wrong?" Rick asked, stepping in even closer. 

"About what?" Indy replied, taking a careful, measured step back. Rick kept moving forward, so Indy kept moving back, slowly, across the too-hot room.

"About you." 

Indy smiled at that, wryly, in spite of himself. "No, you're not wrong." 

"I'm glad about that." 

"You are?"

"Yeah, I really am." 

"What are you doing here, Rick?"

"I think that's pretty obvious."

"So what are you going to do?"

Indy's back hit the wall; Rick kept on coming. "Well, I thought I might start out by kissing you," he said, planting one hand against the wall either side of Indy's shoulders, less than a foot between his chest and Indy's. 

"And then?"

"Then I might take off your tie." 

"And then?"

"I might take off your shirt." 

"And _then_?"

Rick grinned. "I didn't plan that far ahead, Dr. Jones," he said. "How about we wait and see."

And there was something witty right there on the tip of Indy's tongue, he was sure, but it just faded away the moment Rick kissed him. Rick pushed up against him and he pressed his mouth to his and okay, maybe it wasn't Indy's finest, smartest moment because he knew what Rick really wanted and top of the list was _not_ him. He should've sent him away but he tangled his fingers in Rick's hair instead and he kissed him back, real slowly, thoroughly, till they were both skirting pretty close to breathless. The noise Rick made even sounded pleased about that. 

When Rick pulled back and started to undress, Indy just stood back against the wall with a smile and watched him do it. 

"I didn't realize this was a spectator sport," Rick said, teasing, as he unbuttoned his shirt. He tossed it onto the table by the untouched scotch and started on his belt buckle. 

"Maybe I like to watch," Indy replied, but then he toed off his shoes and started on his already loosened tie. Still, Rick was already standing there naked and coaxing himself up to erection with one big hand by the time Indy had even gotten his shirt off and jeez, the guy was something. The muscles were enough to give a guy a complex.

"You're in pretty good shape for a professor," Rick said, looking Indy up and down with a whistle when he finally stepped naked out of his clothes. He was already hard, no coaxing required.

"You're in pretty good shape for..." Indy raised his brows, his hands on his hips. "Y'know, I don't think you said what you do, Rick."

Rick smiled. "You're right, doc," he said. "I didn't." He sat himself down on the end of the bed. "Are we doing this?" 

Indy moved forward, tripped himself on his pants, recovered, laughed out loud; maybe he was drunker than he'd given himself credit for. But Rick was stroking himself again, all flushed through his face and chest and right down the length of his cock and Indy went to him, stood there in front of him, ran his fingers through Rick's hair as Rick looked up at him. He squeezed at Rick's broad shoulders. He bent down and kissed his mouth.

"We're doing this," Indy confirmed, though he was pretty sure they shouldn't. 

Even with the blinds drawn, it was light in the room - all they did was mute the bright afternoon sunlight just a fraction. When Rick stretched out on his back, one arm tucked up under his head and the other hand on his cock, Indy could see everything - old scars and the outline of muscle and places where the sweat stood out. Indy could see every place his own hands touched as he stretched out and moved them over Rick's warm skin, over his collarbones, the tan lines on his biceps, down over his chest, his abdomen, hips, thighs. Rick spread his thighs and Indy knelt between them as Rick propped himself up on his forearms to watch. Indy brushed his palm over the length of Rick's hard cock and curled his fingers around it loosely.

"So, you have a lot of sex with strange guys you meet in bars?" Rick asked, not quite deadpan, as Indy's thumb rubbed circles over the head. 

Indy shrugged, not bothering to hide his smile. "Sure, all the time," he said. "I've gotta say they're usually more attractive. I'm really lowering my standards this time."

Rick laughed and flopped back down onto his back. "Sure, devastate my ego why don't you," he said. "Say, doc are you doing me or am I doing you?" 

Indy's chest went tight. Indy's cock gave an interested twitch. "I didn't realize you went all the way on the first date, Rick," he said. "But now you mention it...wait right there. There's petroleum jelly in my suitcase."

Rick stopped him. "Let me," he said, and he left the bed, and Indy knew what he was doing, the search couldn't've been more obvious, but there was no way he was finding the sapphire there. He watched him go, walking naked across the room in the afternoon sunlight, watched him drop into a crouch and rifle through his suitcase. Jeez, the line of his spine and the curve of his ass were really something.

"What do you need this for?" Rick asked, holding up Indy's gun like he knew his way around one. 

"Well, you never know what kind of trouble you might get into overseas," Indy replied. "You know, there's a whole lot of pickpockets out there."

"Is this a sex thing?" Rick asked, brows quirked as he held up Indy's whip. 

"Yeah, but that's more of a second date activity," Indy replied, with a grin. And when Rick got back to the bed with a tin of stuff in one hand and sure as hell no sapphire in the other, he mock-pouted like he was disappointed. Indy snorted, Rick beamed, and then they got a touch more serious. Indy guesses, looking back, it really was only a touch.

Rick went down on his hands and knees and shuffled his thighs apart, apparently making the decision for both of them and Indy couldn't say he felt particularly disappointed by it. He slicked up his fingers and rubbed them flatly between Rick's cheeks and honestly, at least one thing had been true: he hadn't expected it to go this far at all. He'd half expected a lackluster handjob or maybe Rick would use his mouth, but there he was, pushing his fingers into him, feeling Rick pull tight around them without even trying to relax as he ducked his head down and cursed into the pillow. He ran his free hand down over the length of Rick's spine as he did it, nails raking lightly from the back of his neck right down to his tailbone, his skin hot and slick with sweat. Rick shivered hard and pushed back against Indy's hand and Indy pushed his fingers deeper, rocked them there in him just for a minute, then he pulled them back out as Rick groaned and he slicked himself instead. 

He nudged the head of his cock down between Rick's cheeks and rubbed it there against him. He pushed forward, stretched him, pushed inside him, penetrated him, Rick hissing in a breath as Indy's hands went tight at his hips and he pushed in deeper, deeper, till his thighs pressed up to the back of Rick's. Rick squeezed tight around him, made Indy groan and Rick snickered into the pillows as he did it so Indy pushed in hard and made Rick groan, too. Jeez, it was a tight fit, like Rick hadn't been screwed like this in a hell of a time and maybe he had and maybe he hadn't and Indy shook his head at himself because hell, it made no sense to speculate on the guy's sex life when he was right in the middle of it. 

They did it slowly after that. It was too hot for pretty much anything else, Indy guessed, exertion and booze and making him kinda lightheaded and when he wrapped one hand around Rick's cock and stroked, Rick cursed again and started rocking back to meet his languid thrusts. Indy ran his free hand over Rick's back and he arched it down, hands wrapping tight around the slats in the headboard, thighs spread out wide. Indy cupped Rick's balls and squeezed and made him shiver and laugh, muted by the mattress. Indy's muscles were tight. So were Rick's. Each thrust of his hips seemed to get harder and harder, more erratic, till he was fucking him in short little bursts and Rick pushed back, trying to muffle whatever the hell he was saying by pressing his mouth to one thick bicep. 

Rick came, shuddered and bucked and jerked and came over Indy's hand and the sheets and pulled in real tight around him so Indy could barely move - not that that mattered 'cause he squeezed his eyes shut so tight it hurt and gripped Rick's hip and came in him. He hadn't really meant to, but there it was, and Rick's muscles twitched around him, almost made him buckle at the knees with how damn good it felt. Indy has always enjoyed sex, sure, but this had been _really_ good.

When he pulled out and pretty much collapsed onto his back, Rick pushed himself onto his side and propped his head up on one hand. Rick looked at him. Indy looked right back. 

"I should confess something," Rick said, conspiratorial. "I don't have a room here. I just came in to patronize the bar."

"So stay here," Indy said. "This bed's big enough for six."

"Says the voice of experience."

Indy winked and said, "I never kiss and tell."

They took a shower after that, put on pants at least and sat at the little dining table; they opened up the bottle of not-quite-cheap scotch and didn't bother with the glasses, just passed it back and forth like teens stealing from their parents' liquor cabinet. And later, when the sun set outside the blinds and the room turned dark and the streets got quiet, they undressed again and went back to bed and Rick straddled Indy's hips and rode him, slow and deep, his hands spread out across his chest. 

"You're not gonna try to steal it?" Indy asked, after, still inside him, as he traced Rick's hipbones with his thumbs. 

Rick flashed him a grin. "Not tonight," he replied, not even bothering to deny it. "Seems kinda churlish, all things considered." 

Rick was still there in the morning, no daring 2am escape, and so was the sapphire, still there in Indy's jacket pocket. Indy took it out of the pouch and tossed it to him on the bed across the room; Rick caught it and whistled lowly. 

"I wish I'd gotten there first," he said, squinting at it appreciatively. 

"Better luck next time," Indy replied, and when he settled back down there next to him, Rick handed it back. Indy pushed him down onto his back on the mattress; the sapphire was cold, and when Indy ran it down Rick's chest, ran it down Rick's cock, traced a circle over the tip, he shivered. He chuckled. It wasn't long till he got hard.

They did it again after that, Indy on his back and Rick on top this time, grinning as he pushed up inside him and Indy wrapped his legs around his waist. After that, Rick washed and dressed and kissed Indy goodbye at the door and jeez, if it'd gone on much longer he'd've blown off the conference and maybe just blown Rick instead. 

When Rick had gone, the sapphire had still been on the table by the scotch. Indy figured maybe there was honor among thieves after all. 

\---

"I can't believe you remember all of that," Rick said. He still looked like icy hell, but at least he'd stopped shivering. 

"Y'know, that sapphire's still in the museum back at Marshall," Indy replied. "Though I guess we don't talk a lot about how it got there."

"Too racy for your average museum patron?"

"The story's kinda unfinished, Rick."

Rick gave Indy's ass a feeble squeeze. "I like to think it's just a work in progress." 

In the morning, when they were sure they hadn't gone and expired of the cold after all and the little room had warmed up real nicely, Indy checked Rick's fingers and toes for frostbite like maybe he was a doctor of medicine and not of archaeology. Rick let him do it, MD or not, then sat on the floor and splinted Indy's screwed-up knee. And afterwards, Rick kissed him. Rick put his hands on him. Indy guessed maybe half the reason Rick pissed him off was he'd wanted this again since Istanbul. He'd never not wanted it, not in twelve years.

Besides, after all, the times they met in the field weren't the only times they'd met: there'd been galas and parties and visiting exhibits, there'd been the times Rick had turned up in Connecticut to get his opinion on a piece or on a clue or maybe there'd just be a bottle of familiar, half-decent scotch that they'd drink in Indy's office with their feet up on his desk. They'd known each other since before Rick had even met Evy. By then, he knew Rick had never even lied about his name.

"Next time, let's work together," Indy said, not quite offhand. "We'll split what we find fifty-fifty."

"Somehow I don't think Evy's gonna want us to go all Judgement of Solomon on artefacts," Rick said. "Do idols look good split down the middle?"

"So we take it in turns," Indy said. "First me then you."

"First _me_ then you?" 

"Whatever you say, O'Connell."

Rick grinned and held out his hand for Indy to shake. "You've got a deal, Dr. Jones," he said. 

They were there for ten days, give or take, running low on food but it was pretty easy to melt snow to drink over the fire. After that, they made it down out of the hills, leaning on each other the whole way and sticking clear of the riverbank 'cause Rick really couldn't be trusted not to just fall straight back in. They spent three days in a hotel in Nepal then flew out, Indy walking on crutches through airports till they hit London and Evy picked them up from the airport, then talked the whole way to her house. She didn't seem to care that they'd come back empty-handed, just that they'd come back. She didn't even seem surprised that they were there together. 

"Well, this isn't awkward at all," Indy said, when Evy walked in on them making out in the library. 

"Don't be such a prude, Indiana," she replied with the faintest of smiles, peering at the two of them over the rims of her glasses. "Just do please mind the first editions. Some things do _not_ come out in restoration and I'd hate to have to put a curse on you." Then she turned and walked back out the way she'd come. 

"She's joking, right?" Indy said, his hands still in Rick's hair. 

"Yeah," Rick replied, then frowned. "At least I think she is." 

It's been years since then - another fifteen of them. There've been catacombs and church vaults, temples and ruins, rivers and jungles and more waterfalls than Indy cares to think about most days. There was a lost temple they found not too far from Machu Picchu and a Viking treasure hoard buried on a Scottish island, a sunken Spanish galleon that they dove into someplace in the Caribbean. There was the time they both brought knives to a gunfight and still somehow got out alive. There was the time Rick blew him while he was flying a plane over the Andes. There was the time they screwed back in the basement of the Louvre. 

And when Rick said he'd once unleashed a mummy in Egypt, Indy knew better than to disbelieve. When Indy said he'd once found the Holy Grail, Rick was pretty much the only one who could've understood. Hell, they'd done a lot worse together. A couple of times or three or four, they might've saved the world. 

\---

The forty-ninth time they meet in the field, it's by design. They're back in Istanbul. It's another conference. It's even the same damn hotel. 

"Mind if I join you?" Rick says, at the bar. 

"Sure, be my guest," Indy replies, and he gestures at the empty stool beside him. "Next you'll be wanting me to buy you a drink."

Rick winks. Indy laughs. That's been pretty much the story of their lives.


End file.
